1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing system and an information processing method that provide information according to an image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Information is provided via various media and various technologies for efficiently providing such information have been proposed. For example, an information provision management system for providing useful support information to users by using image processing technology and mobile phone has been proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-107992).
The support information provision system disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-107992 includes a management computer, a parts image data storage unit, and a help data storage unit. With a mobile phone, a user captures an image of part of a copier for which help information is requested. The mobile phone transmits a help request including the captured image data to the support information provision system. The management computer specifies parts image data that is recorded in the parts image data storage unit on the basis of the device type identifier and captured image data that are included in the help request. The management computer extracts the support information and transmits help screen data to the mobile phone.
For image search technology, mixed media reality (MMR) technology for associating paper image information and electronic information with each other is proposed (see Mixed Media Reality (MMR): A New Method of eP-Fusion. Ricoh Technical Report No. 33 DECEMBER, 2007. URL:http://www.ricoh.co.jp/about/company/technology/techreport/33/pdf/A3314.pdf, (accessed 2013-05-27)).
The MMR technology disclosed in Mixed Media Reality (MMR): A New Method of eP-Fusion is aimed at linking paper documents to electronic information. With the MMR technology, no change is required in the look or format of paper documents and each link can be specified on a print via a mobile phone with camera. Particularly, even when optical character recognition (OCR) is difficult to perform for an image with texts, the MMR technology allows specifying of an original image by using the disposition (pitch, positional relationship, etc.) of a partial text image of the text document.
Another technology for implementing high-speed search has been also proposed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-073063). The technology disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2007-073063 allows high-speed search with dynamic object insertion. Space data is registered and an M-tree space indices in a tree structure is previously generated for the registered space data and space data similar to the space data specified by the user is searched with the space indices. In this case, the region of each node constituting the tree structure of the space indices includes all of the space data lower than the node so that overlapping between node regions is deleted, thereby high-speed search is implemented.
Electronic information is suitable to be processed or saved. On the other hand, information dissemination by presenting images to users, e.g. information dissemination via paper media, such as newspapers, is used in various scenes. For example, there are various information dissemination media for disseminating information to users, such as poster and electronic bulletin board in places where the general public come and go, e.g. streets and public facilities, and poster and electronic bulletin board on the wall of tower buildings. With such technology for linking information dissemination media and electronic information, usefulness for users is expected to increase. Use of paper media on which two-dimensional code with embedded Internet link information, which is electronic information, is printed is an example where paper media and electronic information are linked with each other.
However, printing of paper media, such as newspapers, has a problem in that there is a significant time limitation because time is required to determine articles and a layout and then to print paper media. Furthermore, there is also a problem in that the link is often required to be changed according to the circumstance and, each time when the link is changed, the link on the information dissemination medium, such as paper media and electronic media, has to be changed as well, which may be time-consuming and increase the cost.
Furthermore, searching electronic information with texts requires preparation of text information indices, which is time-consuming.
In order to store information of paper media, conventionally, desired articles are cut out of, for example, newspapers and the articles are attached to a scrap note, etc. However, such a work is time-consuming and furthermore causes an inconvenience in that the articles on the back side cannot be read. Alternatively, newspaper articles may be scanned and the information may be saved as image data. However, this case also has a problem in that it requires operations such as scanning and saving and also requires a time for extracting and processing only desired articles.
In view of the above circumstances, there is a need to allow easy provision of electronic information according to a presented image.